Calipari on Reid Travis: “He’s going to bring a lot.”

Reid Travis (Stanford Athletics Photo)

By LARRY VAUGHT

Kentucky coach John Calipari is never shy about promoting his players at the NBA draft — one reason he’s now had 19 lottery picks after Kevin Knox and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander went ninth and 11th in Thursday night’s NBA draft.

He was on ESPN’s SportsCenter Thursday morning to talk about the draft but also managed to let everyone know how excited he was to have Stanford grad transfer Reid Travis now officially at UK.

“He’s going to bring a lot,. I say, if it’s talent or experience, I’m taking talent. But guess what, we get both with him,” Calipari said on ESPN. “He’s a talented player, and he’s experienced. He can help us with leadership.

“He and PJ (Washington), I told PJ and Reid, you both are going to help each other by going against each other and playing with each other.”

The 6-8, 245-pound Travis was a two-time all-Pac 12 player and has already been named a first-team preseason all-American by some. He averaged 19.6 points and 8.7 rebounds per game.

“The players that we have returning with PJ and Nick (Richards), Jemarl (Baker) didn’t play, Quade Green is way better,” Calipari said. “I looked at him in the gym. He’s lost weight. I’m excited. The new guys coming in, we just added Ashton (Hagans) to the team. We should be okay.”

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Larry Vaught

1 comment

I like the fact what he said at the end of the story. WE SHOULD BE OKAY. Yes on paper it looks like we got all the pieces to win no.9. But the game is play on the hardwood and it takes some luck of the way how the bounces in order to get it done. Cal was humble and just said the right words of subscribing up coming team.